The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time

The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time

Michael Craig

Language: English

Pages: 288

ISBN: 0446694975

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub

- One of the author's sources for this book is a member of the illustrious and mysterious "Corporation" of top-10 poker players who pool their money to play for millions--revealing for the first time the secrets of their games, strategies, and partnership. - Books about gambling sell extremely well, as evidenced by the success of Bringing Down the House (Free Press, 2002), which has 320,000 hardcover and trade paperback copies in print combined, and Positively Fifth Street (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), which has sold more than 80,000 hardcover copies. - With celebrity poker tournaments boosting the Bravo cable network's ratings, and ESPN drawing over one million viewers per episode to its coverage of the World Series of Poker (held every June), public interest in the game has never been higher. Additionally, it is estimated that more than 90,000 Americans play poker on the Internet daily, with as much as 55 million dollars being wagered on any given day. - A brilliantly told, fascinating adventure story. The Professor, The Banker, And The Suicide King gives readers a view into an exclusive world--one that very few have had the opportunity to witness. - Michael Craig has written for The American Spectator, Cigar Aficionado, and Penthouse.

to Paris for one final game when he was too sick to travel. (The Frenchman went out in style, winning over a million dollars from his visitors before peacefully expiring.) Chip also played against Archie Karas, the daring gambler who turned a $5,000 loan into more than $10 million during an amazing run at pool and craps. They both played with George the Greek, the colorful, volatile tycoon who once set his cards on fire in anger at the Mirage. (Mike Laing, in a similar fit, once ate one of his

fold hands where he had mediocre cards but expected to make money by inducing a fold. Those losses tended to be expensive, because they were pots that had been fattened by pre-flop raising and Beal had bet or raised after the flop. Brunson seemed to have a unique gift for taking advantage of his lapses in play. As Beal stayed longer in Las Vegas and played more hours in May, it was harder to maintain his focus. He started compromising the rituals so carefully developed and rehearsed, sometimes

group. The combination of high-stakes poker, high-stakes lifestyles, and thin capitalization had many players worried. Had the size of the stakes rattled Jennifer and Todd? If Beal won the freeze-out, they all imagined they would reup, but they would have to scramble to come up with a million dollars apiece. And what if he won again? Even though the group was still ahead (by a little) for the trip, these were the thoughts going through the players’ minds. They were in uncharted territory.

he told them he wanted to play a few more hands. That turned into five minutes, then another five minutes, then another five minutes, then just a few more hands. He realized as the scene unfolded that Jennifer might assume that he would play even more wild during the last few minutes. Andy used this to make the most of a run of good cards. On one hand, he raised before the flop with ace-queen. (It was a natural raising hand, but in a heads-up game played in such an aggressive fashion, he could

most successful businessmen. In short, I had an opportunity to learn from some very wise gamblers. I can say two things for certain. First, it will be at least several decades before there is a higher-stakes poker game than Andy Beal played against Todd Brunson, Chip Reese, Hamid Dastmalchi, Gus Hansen, and Jennifer Harman on May 12-13, 2004. And second, I wouldn’t bet you on it. Bibliography BOOKS Alvarez, A. The Biggest Game in Town. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983. Bellin, Andy.